Ch.202 Mother’s Day Memories
May 2023
I didn’t expect to awaken tearfully on Mother’s Day. After all, Pat and I hadn’t made big deals out of Mother’s or Father’s Day since the children moved away. But this was my first Mother’s Day without her. First came tears and then my usual mantra: “Honey, I miss you so much.” And then came a series of Pat as Mom memories, both good and bad: Pat making dramatic Halloween witch costumes; Pat and I hustling the kids out of the house after she fell asleep smoking and set the couch on fire; Pat making pizza from scratch; Pat reading my son Joshua’s poetry book he made for her; Pat buying used clothes with spots on them and not understanding why the kids didn’t want to wear them. Memories jumping out from their secret hiding places in my brain, each one complete with an attendant emotion, be it joy, fear, or anger, but now with an added layer of sadness, as if someone had sprayed a thin layer of grey paint over each scene.
Pat’s mothering actions were just as complex as everything else about her. As always, she was unpredictable. At her worst, during her alcoholic years, she was sometimes missing in action but never physically abusive, and she was always full of love for her children. At her best, Pat seemed to understand what made each child special: Cindy’s outgoingness, Jenny’s quiet tenaciousness, Joshua’s artistic soul. I think she was better at encouraging each child to be herself or himself than I was.
I am thankful for all these Pat as Mother memories, even as I cry through them. They help me remember just how important the two decades we parented were in defining our marriage. I’d forgotten that reality over the almost forty years since our children created their own lives in their own spaces.